


Moonlight and Vodka

by animefreak



Category: UFO | Gerry Anderson's UFO
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 15:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animefreak/pseuds/animefreak
Summary: Convincing the Russians of the need for SHADO was not easy. Straker and Freeman in Moscow.





	Moonlight and Vodka

**Author's Note:**

> This was in response to a challenge by a fellow writer a very long time ago. The song lyrics were the prompts. I don't own the song or the characters, except for the Russian Colonel.

disclaimer: Not mine. 

Sometime in the late 70's in Moscow.

Fix me a drink, make it a strong one,  
Hey comrade, a drink, make it a long one,  
My hands are shaking and my feet are numb,  
My head is aching and the bar's going round,  
And I'm so down, in this foreign town;

Alec Freeman downed another double vodka shot, his smile never reaching his eyes but the drunken Russian soldiers around him seemingly noticed nothing. All pretense of observing the Australian was drowned in the drinking games being played. All except the two dark clad “civilians” in the corner of the room, who nursed their drinks, read the newspaper and kept a desultory eye on Alec and his companions.

He and Ed had been in the USSR for a week now, making the rounds of the commissars here and in Siberia. He thought Siberia was cold, but Moscow seemed so much colder. The Siberian sights were frigid; everyone was in danger of hypothermia all the time. Moscow was different. The citizens were cold, the masters … ah, leaders, were warm, too warm.

And then there was Col. Ulanspaya. Three days ago she had arrived with an escort to take Ed to yet another Commissar. Alec was left with the local garrison. Contrary to his external acceptance of the situation, Alec was champing at the bit to go find his friend and commanding officer. He downed vodka, echoing whatever sounds the Russians were trumpeting. Would they be so enchanted with him if they knew he would never get drunk? Would they cheer him on with the bar girls if they understood that he was in no danger of spilling anything, including his seed? Bah.

Right now the only body he wanted to get his hands on was a tall, slender built blond who was in the care of the KGB, whatever the bitch had represented herself as, and strangle him. The thought of getting his hands on his commander caused him odd sensations. Dammit. He was not emotionally attached. To anyone. Especially not that gadfly commander of his.

Yeah, right.

He tried to shut out the band which was playing half-way decent country and western, slammed another drink and kissed the surprisingly lovely wench occupying his left arm, gently removing her sweetly pink nailed hand from the gun in his shoulder holster. He shooed her off with a hearty swat on the ass, laughing with the men around him who understood exactly nothing of what he said. Good thing given the increasingly foul mood he was in.

Tonight there's a band, it ain't such a bad one,  
Play me a song, don't make it a sad one,  
I can't even talk to these Russian girls,  
The beer is lousy and the food is worse,  
And it's so damn cold, yes it's so damn cold,  
I know it's hard to believe,  
But I haven't been warm for a week;

Ed Straker shivered in the ancient brick walled cell and tried to ease the strain on his shoulders. A long time ago he had prayed for cold as he sweltered in a tiny dirt cell in an Asian jungle. Now he realized that cold was just as bad … worse. Another shudder jolted through him. He wondered if both shoulders would ache now and then …

The door to the cell opened with an incredible display of screech and groan suitable to a horror film. Come to think of it, if Ulanskaya continued, this was a horror movie. The woman in question stalked into the room, her boots gleaming softly, her army jacket cinched in at the waist to emphasize the womanly curve of her hips and the impressive jut of her breasts. She pulled off her hat and the long black braid uncoiled to trail down her back. She glared at him and still looked like a Byzantine saint, all elongated eyes and full lips with cheek bones Western models would kill for. She pulled the lone chair out from the desk and sat, setting the thick file down on the desk top exactly where she’d set it yesterday and the day before.

“We begin again, Colonel Straker,” she addressed him in her heavily accented English. She spread the evidence on the desk top. “This is created. There are no such beings, no such ships.” She spoke with such certainty to be so dead wrong.

Straker drew in a frozen breath and exhaled, wondering if there were ice chips cutting into his lungs now. “The photographs are real,” he told her, having lost count of how many times he’d said this; wishing it would get through this zealot’s head that the danger was real. 

She snorted. “Fantasy. What you call ‘science fiction’. There are no extra-terrestrials and they are of no danger to the People’s Republic. You want to steal from us to keep us weak, to keep us poor and ignorant.” She sounded so very certain. Yet two of those photographs were taken six weeks ago in the Ukraine.

“It is not fantasy. The aliens put General Henderson in a wheel chair for better than a year, they tried to kill him, to stop this project,” Straker repeated what he’d said so many times before.

“Yes, we are aware of the accident, Colonel. There is no evidence that this was not some disaffected person who planted a bomb to demolish the vehicle.”

He surprised himself with a snort of his own. “There was no evidence of a bomb, nothing. Just a hole in the ground and dead men who had been guards and outriders a minute before.” As cold as he was, his heat in defense of Henderson and the dead was surprising. Cold blue eyes, arctic and cutting, met her dark gaze. “Show me a speck of evidence that there was a bomb, Colonel.”

They stared at each other for a short eternity or a very long minute neither was certain which. Ulanskaya made a noise signifying her disgust before she collected the photos, file and left the room. A moment later, guards entered the room and released him from the manacles and dropped his shirt, jacket and shoes on the bed. His shoulders creaked as he moved, working out kinks and ignoring his observers.

“You should dress, Colonel Straker,” one of the men told him in nearly unaccented English. 

He kept moving at the steady pace he set himself, but the voice sent warnings through him. He pulled on his clothing, the fabric chill but warmer than his skin. Socks and shoes felt both wonderful and horrible at the same time. He fought a groan at the pressure on his feet. It was a wonder he could walk. 

As he turned to see what was now expected of him, one of the soldiers handed him a cup of hot tea from a thermos that vanished back into his heavy overcoat. The liquid burned on the way down, heavy, sweet and burning of alcohol; just what the doctor ordered even if he did have to work to keep from making choking noises. The alcohol was probably vodka. He couldn’t taste it over the flavor of the tea.

The third man placed a heavy overcoat over Straker’s shoulders before they led him out of the cell. Straker didn’t know if this boded well or not, he was just grateful for the warmth starting to seep back into his limbs.

Moonlight and vodka, takes me away,  
Midnight in Moscow is lunchtime in L.A.,  
Ooh play boys, play...

Alec sat back and observed the destruction. Of twelve Russian army men, none remained standing, all having been drunk under the table, as the saying goes. All of the girls were in a similar state. The two gentlemen in the corner raised their glasses and turned back to their papers. Alec looked at his watch. If it’s 10pm in London … Does that make it midnight in Moscow? The band was winding down its final set.

Where the hell was that damned …

The door to the bar blew open.

Espionage is a serious business,  
Well I've had enough of this serious business,  
That dancing girl is making eyes at me,  
I'm sure she's working for the K.G.B.  
In this paradise, ah cold as ice;

“Well, Colonel?”

“He is convinced these are real,” she answered as she set the file on her superior’s desk. The General was a cold man, colder than the frozen Volga. “He is delusional. He is … He believes. He is a fanatic. Whether these pictures are reality or manufactured, he believes that this is real.” She jabbed a finger at the photos for emphasis.

“What do you think?”

“I just told you.”

“What do you think of the man?”

Her eyes searched his craggy face for some hint of what he wanted to hear. “He is strong. He is determined. He is crazy, but the kind that will get people to follow him to the grave in loyalty. He is … a leader and a martyr. I would make him and that deviant assistant of his disappear if I thought it would stop this exercise of futility. However, it will not. I recommend minimal funding. If they can use any of the facilities they were shown, let them, and take it from them.”

“You find him attractive?”

The question was soft, almost innocent; except that nothing to the General was innocent. 

“I would not kick him out of bed if I found him there,” she answered honestly. “But he is like a wolf on ice on the Volga, cunning, never quite what it seems, deadly.”

The General nodded and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. 

Moonlight and vodka, takes me away,  
Midnight in Moscow is sunshine in L.A.,  
Yes, in the gold U.S.A.

Alec watched as Straker walked into the bar, the three guards melting back into the night. The blond walked over to the table, noting the fallen soldiers but saying nothing. He pulled a chair out, ignoring the snoring body that fell out of it. “Having a good time?”

Alec snorted and pushed a glass across the table. “Drink it. You’ll need it to deaden your taste buds.”

Straker regarded the glass half full of clear liquid. “The last time you got me drunk …” he let the sentence lapse as he picked it up and poured the liquid down his throat in one gulp. Breathing was an issue for a moment before everything settled. “Alec …”

“Don’t start.” He gestured over food. “Eat.”

The blond regarded the plates with loathing although the alcohol in his system was beginning to loosen up both is inhibitions and his body. “Alec …”

“Close your eyes and eat or I’ll feed you to one of the girls.” Alec’s voice was pleasant. Even his gaze was even, almost smiling, almost daring Ed to start something.

Ed ate.

After a while, about the time the sun tried futilely to push warmth through the early morning clouds, the blue eyes regarded his companion through lids open only a slit. “What time is it in London at midnight in Moscow?”

“I have no idea. But I do know it’s noon in LA at midnight here.”

“There must be some sort of meeting we can call in LA. I might actually get warm.”

Alec nodded. “We might actually get warm …” He gazed off in the distance, noting the KGB men had left the bar sometime between Ed’s arrival and now. He wanted to suggest another way to warm up, but the cold calculating bastard behind his eyes wouldn’t let him. He raised his glass in a silent toast and downed the vodka. Just another day in SHADOland.


End file.
